Persian or Arabian Gulf, and why?

I use them both pretty interchangeably as well. I remembered being told that we didn't want the Iranians to think they owned it at some point in my career.

LCDR (Join to see)
Now that I think about it, my last few WESTPACS were called Arabian Gulf deployments. I'm sure the reason was because of Iran.

Well I always said Persian Gulf.

I am near where that used to be at the training base off of harbor and laning.

I will always call it the gulf war.

Definitely Persian Gulf. If you Arabian Gulf, someone from the UAE, Oman, Qatar, or Yemen might take offense to it and we should really watch that line and not cross it. Just kidding...Persian Gulf just sounds better, because the Persian Empire (Mesopotamia) was an enormous entity as an empire. It still pays homage to that lost, but unified culture they once had. You say Arabian Gulf and someone may not know that it is more than just Saudia Arabia.

LCDR (Join to see) - I used to go by there. I went to Cabrillo Elem as a kid. I hated to see the Navy Base go. I did go to just about every base there. I was in the my school Navy JROTC program.

That's pretty much why we do it.

We've essentially been in a Cold War with Iran for 30 years or so; calling it the "Arabian Gulf" is a (very mild) form of delegitimization. If that war turns hot, detatching any sort of sentiment to the Iranians also helps to justify fighting/killing them- it's a simple paychological trick as well as something we donto piss them off without actually starting hostilities. At least, that's my understanding.

And then given our allegiance with countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, we also use it as a small token of flattery.